Gray Matter

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

This painting at times has been a bit of a challenge. The form itself is like no other object I have ever drawn or depicted. This train has layers of metal stretched in subtle curves and molded forms that I do not see on a daily basis. The other thing about this picture, is that, it is all basically gray. Don't get me wrong. There are beautiful grays. There are cool grays and warm grays and industrial grays. There are shadows of gray upon other grays. There are pings in the gray metal and so on...

Once I got started on the watercolor, the painting was developing nicely, however, I have had other demands on my time and thus have only been able to work on it in bits and pieces. I do find it to be an unusually strong composition. There is life and mystery beyond the edge of the scene, in the shadows and down the tracks.

Recently, I have spent time contemplating the importance of gray in painting. The grays and neutral colors, at least in watercolor, do not merely set the mood or time of day but also enable the truly vibrant colors to shine. For example, the red stripes in the painting stand out in this color scheme. 

Based on habit, I either use Payne's gray, a cool, mixed with other colors or Davy's gray, a warm, right out of the tube. I have also mixed various other grays from sepia or cobalt blue but have lately begun to expand my range of gray. There is a world of rich grays, which I have been exploring, for example, from mixing burnt sienna and ultramarine. In fact, by combining any two complementary colors you achieve a gray or neutral color, which can be made warmer or cooler as needed just by incorporating the right pigment.